In a conventional baler machine which is not equipped with the improvement of this invention, the compression ram head will on occasion move too much material into the compression chamber where the bale is formed so that the material protrudes back from the compression chamber into the charging passage which leads from the charging chamber to the compression chamber. Such a situation may occur, for example, if an excessive amount of material is originally charged into the bale charging chamber. Under such a condition, the compression ram head cannot be advanced to its normal baling eject position, i.e., with the base of the compression ram head in alignment with the side wall of the discharge passage from the compression chamber through which the bale is ejected. Under such circumstances, the width of the bale will be greater than that of the discharge passage and thus the oversized bale cannot be ejected through the discharge passage by the ejector ram head. In a conventional baler, such an oversized bale condition can be remedied only by a manual removal of the excess material in the baling chamber to thereby reduce the size of the oversized bale. Such a manual removal operation is time-consuming.
One attempt to deal with this problem is a baler mechanism described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,201,266. This mechanism is effective from an operational standpoint, but is relatively complex and costly.
As will be explained more fully in the description which follows, the bale releasing mechanism of the present invention contemplates a design wherein the exit passageway size can be increased to accommodate oversized bales of various size. The mechanism is relatively simple and less costly than prior mechanisms. Other advantages will be apparent from the description which follows.